Chapter 18 Chapter Seventeen Eighteen

A month passed in an ordinary life, and all the ailments in the heart seemed to be healed under that long day.The weather is extremely hot, and everyone is only busy sweating, washing rice wine with cold water, and don't need to worry about it, because it is in people's life, so they can't keep it.Every day, Cuicui goes to the side of the White Pagoda with its back to the sun to take an afternoon nap. The high place is extremely cool, and there are so many bamboo sparrows and other birds in the two mangosteen bamboo groves that it makes her feel like a mountain in her sleep. Carried by the singing of birds, the dreams I dream are often the most absurd ones.

This is not the fault of man.Poets will write whole books of poems on a small matter, sculptors can carve a human figure with bones and blood on a single stone, and painters can paint green, red, and gray in one stroke. Create a magical color painting one by one, who didn't make so many weird results just thinking about a smiling shadow or a frowning mark?Cuicui couldn't use words, stones, or colors to transfer her heart's passions of love and hate to something else, but she could only let her heart race ahead on all the most absurd things.From this secrecy, she often gets excitement that is both surprising and gratifying.The slightly unknown future shook her emotions so much that she couldn't completely hide that obsession from her grandfather.

As for the grandfather, it can be said that he knew everything.But in fact he is a person who knows nothing.He understands that Cui Cui doesn't hate that old man, but he doesn't understand how the young man's old man is.He has encountered setbacks from the ship's general office and the second elder's office, but he is not discouraged. "Arrangements should be done right, it makes sense, and everything has its fate!" Thinking like that, it seemed that things were going on forever.When he opened his eyes, the dream he had was even more absurd and broader than that of his granddaughter Cuicui.He asked various transitional locals about the lives of the second father and his son, and cared about them as if they were his own family members.But it was also weird, so he was afraid of seeing that boat boss and the two elders.When he saw them, he didn't know what to say, but his old temper rubbed his hands back and forth, and he completely lost his composure.Both the old father and the son understood what he meant, but the dead man embedded a bleak impression into the hearts of the father and son, and the two of them spent their days together as if they didn't understand what the old boatman meant.

It is clear that Bai Yelai does not dream. When talking to Cui Cui in the morning, the grandfather will say: "Cui Cui, Cui Cui, I had a dream last night that I was not afraid of people!" Cui Cui asked: "What kind of dream is afraid of people?" Just pretending to be thinking about a dream, while looking closely at Cuicui's small face with long eyebrows, while talking about the good dream he had with his eyes open at another time.Needless to say, those dreams were not really frightening in any way. All rivers have to return to the sea, and the story goes very far at the beginning, but in the end it always comes back to the matter that made Cuicui blush.When Cuicui looked unhappy and showed a little embarrassment on her face, the old boatman seemed a little frightened again, and hurriedly explained, using gossip to cover up the original meaning of what he said about the question.

"Cui Cui, I didn't say that, I didn't say that. Grandpa is old and confused, and there are too many jokes." But sometimes Cui Cui quietly listened to her grandfather's silly jokes, and kept smiling afterward. Cui Cui will suddenly say: "Grandpa, you are really a little confused!" After hearing this, the grandfather stopped making a sound. He would say, "I have a lot of things on my mind," but before he could say anything, he was called away by the transitional person. The weather is hot, and the transitional people come from a distance, carrying a load of seventy catties on their shoulders. When they reach the stream, they will squat on the rocks next to the tea mug to drink herbal tea, and exchange "blowing sticks" with their companions. "Smoke pipe, while chatting with the ferryman.Many nonsense words were spoken from then on, and the old boatman heard them.The transitional people sometimes wash their feet and bathe by the stream because the stream is clean, and the longer they sit, the more they talk.Grandpa relayed some words to Cui Cui, and Cui Cui learned many things.The price of the goods fluctuates, the cost of taking the sedan chair and the boat, when the man who set the raft floats his raft off the beach, how do the ten or so big cockroaches move, eat meat and smoke on the small smoke boat, big feet Mother how to burn cigarettes... everything is prepared.

Nuo sent the two elders back to Chadong from the east of Sichuan.It was almost dusk, and the stream was very quiet. My grandfather and Cui Cui were watching the radish seedlings in the vegetable garden.Cui Cui slept for a long time during the day and felt a little lonely, as if hearing someone screaming for transition, she rushed down to the stream first.When going down the ridge, I saw two people standing on the edge of the pier, their backs were clearly seen in the shadow of the setting sun, it was Nuosong Erlao and his family who had been together for many years!Cuicui was taken aback, like a little beast seeing a hunter, she turned her head and ran away into the mangosteen forest.But when the two people by the stream heard the sound of footsteps, they turned around and saw it clearly.After waiting for a while and no one came again, the old man shouted for transition again.

The old boatman could hear it clearly, but he still squatted on the radish seedlings and counted vegetables, feeling amused in his heart.He had already seen Cui Cui walking, he knew that Cui Cui must have understood who the transitional person was, so he squatted on the high rock and ignored it.The Cuicui people don't care about things, and the transitional person begged her to quit, but she couldn't do it, so she could only call transitional with a hoarse voice.He called a few times for many years, but stopped when no one came, and said to the second elder, "what is this thing? Could it be that the old man was sick and overturned, leaving Cuicui alone?" The second elder said: "Wait a minute, it's nothing!" I waited for a while.Because here was waiting quietly, but the old boatman on the field thought to himself: "Could it be the second elder?" As if he was worried about disturbing Cuicui, he still squatted still.

But after a while, the stream shouted again, and the voice was a little different. This was really the voice of the second elder.Are you angry?How long have you been waiting?Arguing?The old boatman ran to the stream while making wild guesses.When I got to the stream, I saw two people had boarded the boat, and one of them was the second elder.The old boatman shouted in surprise: "Ah, old man, you're back!" The young man seemed very unhappy, "I'm back. What's wrong with your ferry? No one came after waiting for a long time!" "I thought—" the old boatman looked around, but he didn't see Cui Cui's shadow. He saw the yellow dog running from the bamboo forest on the mountain. Knowing that Cui Cui had gone up the mountain, he changed his words and said, "I thought you had crossed the ferry."

"After the crossing! You are not allowed to board the boat, who dares to sail?" Na Changnian said, a water bird flew across the water, "The kingfisher has returned to its nest, we have to go home for dinner!" "Morning, early to Hejie," said the old boatman, who had jumped onto the boat, and said in his heart, "Don't you want to inherit this ferry?" Pulling the rope, the boat left the shore . "Second old man, I'm very tired on the road!..." As the old boatman said, the two elders listened without emotion.When the boat came to the shore, the young man and his family carried burdens for many years and left over the mountain.The impression of indifference remained in the old boatman's heart, so the old boatman clenched his fists and threatened three times behind the two people, growled softly, and pulled the boat back.